I noticed Alex is playing doubles with Travis Rettenmaier and that Travis also made it to the main draw. This is an interesting article (several years old though) about Travis and his past. Seems like a lesson in "how not to develop a young tennis player"...

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By Greg Schain
Daily Bruin Contributor
Travis Rettenmaier said himself that he shows signs of immaturity. He gets sugar highs everyday at 8 p.m. He loves playing video games and hates reading books. And he is very emotional and hyper.

Why?

Not because he refuses to grow up or because he has some strange psychological disease. Simply put, Rettenmaier is a young for a college student.

As a 16-year-old, Rettenmaier, a Southern California native, came to UCLA last year to play for the men's tennis team. He worked extremely hard the last three months of high school so that he could graduate early and come to UCLA.

And a year and a half later as a 17-year-old sophomore, Rettenmaier is now a key member of one of the best college teams in the country.

Rettenmaier came to college in the first place because he wanted to build his maturity on and off the court. The competition at the junior level was just not challenging enough for him.

He has the same attitude now as he did then about coming to college: he wants to get good enough to be a pro, and he wants to do it fast.

"I have no other ambitions than to be a professional tennis player at this point," Rettenmaier said. "I'm looking to work as hard as I can, train as hard as I can, and get as good as I can as soon as I can."

So why not go pro now? After all, many tennis players skip college altogether to become professionals in their early teens.

But to Rettenmaier, the choice was obvious.

"I am not mature enough right now," he said, "and I know that. I have a lot of work to do."

And Rettenmaier has some first-rate mentors to let him know when he is mature enough to go pro. His mother, Karen Dawson, who passed away in the fall, played for UCLA from 1971-1973 and went on to have a successful professional career. Rettenmaier's father, Travis, and his sister, Bettina, also play tennis and have both captured national championships in USTA events.

Rettenmaier is working hard to get his game to the level it needs to be competitive on the professional level. He worked very hard over the summer, currently practices several times a day, and maintains several personal coaches, both in the Los Angeles area and in Northern California.

He also uses UCLA Assistant Coach Jason Sher to help him with his fundamentals.

"Jason is one of my favorite coaches I have ever had," Rettenmaier said. "Even if it is at 5 a.m., he is always ready to go (rally)."

Sher thinks highly of Rettenmaier as well.

"He's got as much determination as anyone I've ever worked with," Sher said. "He is really a unique player."

According to Sher, Rettenmaier's serve-and-volley game is excellent, and his potential when he goes pro will be limitless. But he is not quite ready to take on the world just yet.

"He is a couple of years away," Sher said. "For now, he has the potential to dominate college tennis if he decides to stay."

But can Rettenmaier hold off his dream for a year or two more, or will he go pro next year and not come back to UCLA?

"I'm 99.99 percent coming back this year," he said.

Coach Martin says it is most likely that Rettenmaier will go pro after his junior year.

"I think he'll come back one more year," Martin said. "One year of solid college tennis would do him good. If we got a senior year out of him, then great. But I can't tell you I'm even 50 percent sure we'll see him his senior year."

But for now, that is the distant future, and there are more troubling worries for Rettenmaier and his team. The NCAA Championships start this weekend with Regionals, when UCLA hosts Cal State-Sacramento at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at 1 p.m. on Saturday. UCLA hopes to recapture the NCAA title, which it hasn't won since 1984. And Rettenmaier hopes to deliver for both his team and coach.

"We will be ready for the NCAA's, guaranteed," Rettenmaier said. "Coach Martin has been in a drought, and we want to get him that title."

Although many of his teammates are rising stars, what separates Rettenmaier from the others is that he is the only American in the starting line up. Every other starting player is a native of Europe.

In his first season, Rettenmaier was frustrated at the lack of Americans on the team. After all, the tennis team only gets 2 1/2 scholarships, and Rettenmaier wasn't receiving any of the money.

"When I first came here, I thought, why are these foreigners coming in here and taking my scholarships. I got really pissed off at it," he said.

Rettenmaier also got angry because the Europeans were taking his spot in the starting lineup. As a freshman, he only played at doubles. He had a successful year, partnered mainly with fellow freshman Lassi Ketola to compile an 18-8 record for the year.

But he never got a chance to start at singles. It was difficult for him to sit on the sidelines, since just a year earlier he was one of the top 16-and-under juniors in the world.

"Last year, I was pissed off the whole time. It was really bothersome for me," Rettenmaier said. "I just hated it. I had always played both singles and doubles, no matter what team I was on. It was really weird."

Martin agreed with Rettenmaier's self-evaluation.

"Not starting in the singles line-up last year really hurt him, because he is as fierce a competitor as anyone on our team," Martin said.

This year, things have turned around for Rettenmaier. After working hard over the summer, he had a superb fall season, going 11-4 at singles. The solid record earned him the No. 6 singles spot on the team this year and has gotten him much more excited about the team and his own individual game.

He has certainly proved he belongs in the singles lineup. His record this year is 14-1 in dual matches, and 27-7 overall, helping the team to a 20-2 overall record and the No. 2 seed in the upcoming NCAA Championships.

Rettenmaier has anchored the back part of the UCLA singles lineup to a point where his teammates can count on him for a guaranteed victory.

"Our team knows that we can count on Travis to win every time he goes out onto the court," said Rettenmaier's friend and confidant, freshman Marcin Matkowski.

Having a guaranteed point is what wins NCAA Championships, and the Bruins hope that with Rettenmaier's help they will be able to go all the way this year.

Tricky_Forehand

05-24-2005, 08:20 PM

Interesting article. Alex & Travis have been playing Doubles together for the last 3 tourneys and they also played Doubles together in the Juniors.

The results have been posted on the site that Coo gave a link too. The person giving updates must have went off duty when it came to Alex's match. At least the ATP was on top of it (never thought I would say that :p )

He won 7-6(6) 6-3

Scotso

05-24-2005, 09:33 PM

go Alex :D

Tricky_Forehand

05-26-2005, 03:00 AM

For everyone's information, on the tourney website there is a link to another website that has video clips of most of the matches. Go about half-way to 3/4 down the page and the videos start on the 24th. I only saw one with an interview so far and it was with one of the italians. I'm really only interested in Tuesday's last match myself ;).

CooCooCachoo

05-26-2005, 11:07 AM

Very nice videos :) I like how Golmard & Bogomolov Jr. were really friendly at the net :yeah:

Tricky_Forehand

05-26-2005, 08:40 PM

Friendly? Interesting way to describe it :)

SwissMister1

05-26-2005, 09:24 PM

For everyone's information, on the tourney website there is a link to another website that has video clips of most of the matches. Go about half-way to 3/4 down the page and the videos start on the 24th. I only saw one with an interview so far and it was with one of the italians. I'm really only interested in Tuesday's last match myself ;).